514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
Indian artifacts to the public. In 1836 he had opened his Washing- 
ton Museum, the first museum in the Nation’s Capital, as “a rational 
place of amusement.” Five years later he turned over his collection 
to the National Institute, and he served as curator of the enlarged 
national collections while they were displayed in the Patent Office. 
He was the logical person to plan and install the collections in the 
Smithsonian. No other man in Washington could have matched his 
long experience in museum work. 
The original accession book of Varden’s Washington Museum, pre- 
served in the Smithsonian Archives, reveals that, like other museum 
proprietors of his time, Varden had been an omnivorous collector of 
rare and curious objects in the fields of natural history, history, and 
art. Among his many and varied specimens he listed some 31 Amer- 
ican Indian artifacts. They composed the nucleus of the National 
Institute’s Indian collection which came to the Smithsonian in 1857. 
Although Varden made two collecting trips westward as far as 
New Orleans and St. Louis in the 1830’s, he obtained his Indian mate- 
rials from local collectors and travelers rather than from the Indians 
directly. His knowledge of the specimens was limited to the informa- 
tion these men gave him. A few of the artifacts were tribally iden- 
tified, such as a “War Club of the Crank-a-war (Karankawa) Indians 
of Texas,” and “Three Bowles made by the Indians of the Six Na- 
tions in Alabama” (Choctaw). But a larger number were of a more 
nebulous origin, such as: “A Pair of Indian Moccasins,” “Indian 
Knife Scabbard from Canady,” and “2 Pipe Stems from the Old 
Stock of General Clark of St. Louis, from the Rockey Mountains.” ? 
A description of the exhibits in the Smithsonian Institution, appear- 
ing in the 1859 guidebook, indicates that the American Indian ex- 
hibits then occupied one case and portions of two others located on 
the upper galleries at the west end of the great hall. (PI. 1, fig. 2.) 
One case must have been quite completely filled with a North Ameri- 
can Indian miscellany “including Head Dresses ... Canoes... 
Feather Blankets ... Water-Baskets ... Indian Pillow, stuffed 
with Buffalo hair... Bows and Arrows... Pipes, etc. etc.” 
(Rhees, 1859, p. 69). This group of specimens undoubtedly included a 
number of artifacts made by the Indians of California and the north- 
west coast collected by the United States Exploring Expedition under 
the command of Lt. Charles Wilkes, USN, during its long sea voyage 
in 1838-42. Titian Peale’s catalog of the ethnological collections made 
by that expedition, preserved in the division of ethnology of the U.S. 
National Museum, indicates that many of the Indian specimens were 
1These pieces are of particular historical interest. William Clark, who will always 
be remembered as the courageous coleader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, had founded 
the first museum west of the Mississippi River in a building attached to his residence in 
St. Louls in 1818. Clark died in 1888, and the fate of his excellent Indian collection has 
been a matter of speculation. 
